Karachi colleges academic session 2010-11 delay
Date for first-year classes yet to be announced
Karachi, Oct 06: In the absence of any official announcement concerning
the beginning of first-year classes for the academic session (2010-11),
an utter confusion prevails at almost all public-sector colleges in the
city though almost a month has elapsed since the expiry of a previous
deadline. As the process of admissions to the city's
public-sector colleges is continuing, classes for first-year students
may now begin on Oct 10 or Oct 12. It means that the fresh
students will have to complete their entire course in just 105 working
days as against the normal academic year of about 180 to 190 days. Admitting
that the current academic session for first-year students has not yet
started in the city's government colleges, a senior official associated
with the centralized admission policy (CAP) committee attributed it to
the inordinate delay caused in accomplishing the process of admissions. The
official said that the placement lists belonging to all the six
faculties were issued in piecemeal, consuming more than nine weeks time
and because of that not only the students had lost their interest in the
process, but it had also created uncertainties among the college
administrations. He said that since the placement lists
concerning male (commerce), male (humanities), female (commerce) and
female (humanities) groups were issued in between Sept 24 and 30, all
those admitted to these faculties were still in the process of
completing their remaining admission formalities at the colleges
concerned and, as such, the decision concerning beginning of the classes
for the fresh students now rests with the principals concerned. The
process of admissions to the government colleges and higher secondary
schools of the metropolis which began on July 23 is still continuing as
all those candidates who have been accommodated in various colleges are
still busy in fulfilling admission formalities concerning submission of
forms and fees at the colleges concerned or visiting claim centres for
getting rectified the computer errors caused in their placement. Meanwhile,
another factor responsible for the inordinate delay in starting of the
classes is errors occurred in the computerised system and these errors
are now being rectified at all the 15 claim centres set up by the CAP
Committee for the purpose. In a number of cases, a large number
of candidates, particularly girls, have been given admissions to the
colleges which are not only quite far away from their residences, but
non-availability of the public transport from their residence to the
colleges has also made it impossible for their parents to send their
children to such institutions. A visit to the claim centres shows
that they have been thronged with a large number of students either to
get rectified the errors cropped up in their placement or to get
admission to the colleges where the public transport is easily
available. Meanwhile, Sindh education department's decision to
include the city's government higher secondary schools under the purview
of the CAP once again failed as, according to sources, hardly between
one and two per cent fresh matriculates applied for admissions to them,
thus leaving a large number seats vacant in these institutions.
Your Comments
"name= muqaddas form no= 77864 roll no= 437303 applied for Degree College Korangi 2-1/2 Karachi confirmation of admission not shown on college notice board. kindly inform us."
Name: SOHAIL IQBAL
Email: sohailsunny408@gmail.com
City, Country: karachi
"I Passed My Intermediate Exams And I Want To Do F.Sc (Pre-Eng) Again And Didnt Fill CAP Form So Can You Tell Me That How I Admiting Again In F.Sc"
Name: Muhammad Mudassir
Email: m_sheikh_92@live.com
City, Country: Karachi, Pakistan
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KUTS threatens week-long strike
Karachi: Rejecting government gestures on budget cuts,
representatives of the federal body of university teachers have warned
of a five-day strike in protest if the government didn't release the
allocated amount to public sector institutions of higher learning. "The
amount of Rs1bn plus which the government has announced to release
after five months is peanuts. The government must understand that it's
not just a matter of our salaries or allowances as some people are
projecting. The universities simply don't have any money to run
laboratories or carry out any other work," said Prof Dr Badr Soomro, the
secretary-general of the Sindh chapter of the Federation of All
Pakistan Universities and Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA), at a
press briefing here on Tuesday.Academic activities were on Tuesday
completely suspended in a significant number of public sector
universities across the province on a call given by the FAPUASA. It was
the second time that such a call had been given. The teachers
also demanded the removal of Higher Education Commission's (HEC)
chairman, who they believed was unqualified to head the institution, as
well as of retired personnel acting as vice chancellors in a number of
universities. They also demanded an immediate support to PhD
scholars and inclusion of the association's members in the HEC, which
they said was taking unilateral decisions. The teachers deplored
what they termed a 'pathetic attitude' of the government. "Education is
state's responsibility. But, what we are witnessing is an extremely
insensitive approach. Instead of giving the full allocated quarterly
grant, the government releases some amount upon being pressurised when
the issue is highlighted in the media, and then abruptly stops the
process, leaving the educational institution once again in uncertainty,"
said Karachi University Teachers' Society (Kuts) President Dr Abid
Husnain at the briefing. Visibly disappointed by the government
response, the teachers said that official suggestions of generating
funds by selling off university land were reflective of a 'sick
mentality'. "It is ironic that while the government is reluctant
to take the rich to task who have gotten billion of rupees of loans
written off, it has problems when it comes to the public sector
educational institutions of the country," said Dr Faiyaz Vaid of
Kuts.The teachers also appealed to the Sindh governor, who is the
chancellor of the public sector universities in the province, to
transfer the powers of issuing a no-objection certificate (NoC) to the
vice chancellors so that the university teachers were relieved of much
trouble which they faced due to the delay in the process."It is one of
our long-standing demands which the governor had accepted some time ago.
It's only in Sindh that university teachers are required to get a
no-objection certificate from the governor for any foreign visit.
Universities in other provinces had transferred the job to the
respective vice chancellors long ago," Dr Husnain
explained.There was also a call for the immediate government help for
about 400 PhD scholars waiting to go abroad on scholarships across the
country. The government must come to their support, the teachers
demanded. "These scholars, selected from different universities
all over the country and plan to teach in their respective institutions
once they finish their studies, had completed all official formalities
and waiting for their visas when they were told that the funds' release
had been stopped," said Dr Husnain, adding that there were about 200
such cases only in Sindh. Prof Soomro also called for the
immediate removal of those vice-chancellors who had retired long ago but
got extensions in their services. Out of 10 public sector universities
in Sindh, eight of them had such vice chancellors, he said. The
institutions headed by retired personnel, according to Prof Soomro,
were: KU, the NED University of Engineering and Technology, the Dow
University of Health Sciences, the Mehran University of Engineering and
Technology, Sindh University, Sindh Agriculture University and the
Quaid-i-Awam University of Engineering and Technology, Nawabshah, and
the Benazir Bhutto Medical University, Larkana. He said that
three of the eight such universities - Karachi University, Sindh
Agriculture University and the DUHS - were headed by Prof Dr Pirzada
Qasim Raza Siddiqui, Dr A.Q. Mughal and Dr Masood Hameed Khan,
respectively, and they were also the members of the governor search
committee set up to recommend names for the appointment of vice
chancellors. "The entire process lacks transparency. We demand
that an in-service person from the same university having a PhD should
be appointed for a single term. Besides, the criteria for appointing a
vice chancellor should be the same for all universities," Prof Soomro
said.
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Schools reopen in Sukkur
Sukkur: Schools in the city reopened on Monday after remaining closed for more than four months. According to a survey condition of many schools, which served as relief camps for flood victims, is not up to mark.
The schools were to reopen on August 1 after a two-month summer
vacation. The internally displaced persons from Jacobabad, Kashmore and
Shikarpur districts started coming to Sukkur from the first week of
August and were accommodated in the government school buildings and
colleges besides tents at open places. In schools and colleges,
where IDPs were staying, concerned staff was deployed to look after
both the IDPs and the building structures. Initially, the IDPs
were provided cooked meals. But when the district administration and
other agencies distributed dry ration among them, they started cooking
meals on their own in these buildings. Being short of money,
the IDPs started breaking school furniture and using it as burning wood
and the teachers and in-charge of the relief camps found them helpless,
because the IDPs were not ready to listen to them. Requesting
anonymity, a teacher of the Government Modern High School, said that on
some occasions the IDPs quarrelled among themselves and threw chairs on
each others and damaged the furniture. They also damaged the flooring of the school by cooking meals, he added.
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Teachers seek raise in salary
Umerkot: Feeder teachers, provided to education department by the
National Commission for Human Development to restore academic
activities in non-functional schools, took out a procession here on
Tuesday on the occasion of World Teachers Day. They were demanding regularisation of their services and increase in their salary.
Speaking on the occasion, teachers' leaders Mohammad Ali and Sawan said
that about 7,500 feeder teachers had been serving with the Sindh
education department in collaboration of the commission for seven years
and had restored academic activities in non-functional schools in far
flung areas. Yet their services were not being regularised and
they received a meagre salary of Rs2,500 per month, they said. Initially
they were paid Rs1,000 salary but later it was increased to Rs2,500 on
the basis of their better performance. They said that the government announcement of Rs7,000 minimum wages had proved to be a hollow slogan. Our
Hyderabad bureau adds: To mark the World Teachers Day, a procession was
taken out from Government High School, Society, to the press club. Dawn
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Latest Oxford Dictionary with innovations launched
Karachi: The eighth edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) was launched Tuesday evening. The
launch, sponsored jointly by the UK Deputy-High Commission and the
Oxford University Press (OUP) Pakistan, was held on the beautifully
manicured lawns of the UK Deputy-High Commission at Runnymede, amid a
cool evening sea breeze. The latest edition of the dictionary is unique in that it incorporates a lot of information technology and computers. Welcoming
the guests, Mrs Ameena Saiyid, OBE, Managing Director, OUP (Pakistan),
said that the chief aim of the Oxford University Press was to
disseminate knowledge and education across the world, adding that the
dictionary was one of the most important tools of learning. In its new
eighth edition, she said, the dictionary had been revised to make it
even more handy and more relevant to the demands of the present age. In
this context, she mentioned the Oxford Writing Tutor, an innovation that
helps improve the students' written work and teaches them not to just
write correctly but also effectively. Another feature she mentioned was
the top collocation box in which the writers find the vocabulary
pertaining to the subject they have chosen to write about. She said
that the eighth edition offered more interactive support on CD-Rom which
was the most appropriate companion for the print version. The eighth
edition CD-Rom was a powerful learning tool, she said, and was proof of
how research could help a product keep up with and satisfy a new
generation of consumers. Ms Raheela Ashraf explained the new
revolutionary technological features in detail. Through a slide
presentation, she traced the history of the Oxford Dictionary beginning
1948. She explained seven new features of the OALD in detail and also
the detailed working of the Oxford Writing Tutor and another
revolutionary innovation, the i-writer. United Kingdom Deputy-high Commissioner and Director, UK Trade and Investment in Pakistan, Robert Gibson, said
that English was the most widely spoken language internationally with
380 million native English speakers alone. Besides, he said, there were
700 million people across the globe learning English. In lighter vein,
he said, "Perhaps the next edition of the dictionary will teach the
Consuls-General how to make their speeches". Through the global
influence of science, the arts, and the internet English was now the
most widely learned second language, he said. The OALD, he said, could be a key to achieving the aim of learning. Being
Director of the UK Trade and Investment in Pakistan, he said that last
year the turnover of UK trade and investment in Pakistan crossed the 1
billion- dollar mark. He said that projects like the Oxford University
Press were also very much part of the UK's investment in Pakistan. Among
others, the function was attended by school, college, and university
teachers and prominent figures in the fields of education and
journalism. The news
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